3 minute read
PETER McVERRY SJ
REALITY CHECK
PETER McVERRY SJ
Advertisement
WITHOUT GLOBAL SOLIDARITY TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE, THE FUTURE IS GRIM.
Warning: this article may be bad for your mental health!
In 1977, NASA sent a spacecraft into outer space, with a gramophone record describing the diversity of life on earth. If some aliens intercept this spacecraft, and have a record player, they may learn about this extinct species that used to inhabit a planet called Earth.
Can we save life on this planet? COVID-19 can be considered a trial run for addressing global warming. COVID-19 is a global problem that requires cooperation and coordination between all nations and individuals on earth. But, instead, we have seen wealthier nations buying up 80 per cent of all the vaccines produced to ensure that their own populations are fully vaccinated, with boosters available, while poorer nations are left with the scraps from the table. We have seen greed replace sharing, in the refusal of the richer nations to allow poorer nations patent-free access to the vaccines which would enable them to produce their own vaccines at an affordable cost. We have seen COVID-19 deniers refusing to get vaccinated and putting their own and others’ lives at risk. We have seen disinformation propagated on social media. We have seen decision-makers refusing to implement restrictions, such as wearing masks, which could save lives.
If this is how we responded to a global crisis which we all experienced, how will we respond to a crisis which most people have not yet experienced? For many, global warming is still a notional crisis, not yet real.
But the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), produced by hundreds of the world’s top experts from 66 countries, starkly warns that the crisis is
indeed real and, if nothing is done immediately, life on planet earth will be extinguished. The repeatedly ignored warnings over past decades have now become reality, Already, we have seen wildfires in Greece, Turkey, USA, Canada, Italy, Sicily, Algeria, and Siberia, unprecedented in our history. We have seen record temperatures in many parts of the world. Other places, such as England, Germany and South Africa, have experienced extreme drought or floods. Many changes due to past greenhouse gas emissions are already irreversible. The world knows what to do, but will we do it?
Like with COVID-19, we see influential decision-makers, usually in wealthier countries, deny the problem of global warming, for fear that their economic growth might be reduced, like former President Trump and current President Bolsonaro of Brazil who is allowing large parts of the Amazon forest
to be destroyed in order to graze cattle. We see the oil and gas industry, and their investors, paying expensive lobbyists to ensure that politicians will continue to support, and even expand, the use of fossil fuels. We see interest groups trying to ensure that their sectors will not be adversely affected by any proposed environmental changes. Those who deny the science behind global warming believe that science will solve the problem!
The crisis is not only a scientific but also a moral one. Without global solidarity, the future is grim. Unless every nation and every individual is willing to make the radical sacrifices needed, the wildfires, heatwaves, droughts and floods will only continue to get worse, leading to food production becoming impossible in parts of the world, leading in turn to social unrest and massive migration.
Hence the churches have a key role to play. Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ was a prophetic call to the values of caring and sharing, to a universal solidarity, in order to save the planet, a call that has gone unheeded by many decisionmakers. He reminds us that care for creation, over which God gave stewardship to us humans, is an integral part of our faith.
The indications are that too many are unwilling to make the individual, sectoral and national sacrifices needed. The world, post-Covid, is waiting to get back to normal! Already, many people are getting ready to fly around the world again on holidays, encouraged by the aviation industry and tourist destinations. But getting back to normal is exactly what we must not do.
We thought we could exploit our planet; but our planet is fighting back. Will the human race survive? I very much doubt it.
